voyages
and travels; these interest young people universally. Robinson Crusoe,
Gulliver, and the Three Russian Sailors, who were cast away upon the
coast of Norway, are general favourites. No child ever read an account
of a shipwreck, or even a storm, without pleasure. A desert island is
a delightful place, to be equalled only by the skating land of the
rein-deer, or by the valley of diamonds in the Arabian Tales. Savages,
especially if they be cannibals, are sure to be admired, and the more
hair-breadth escapes the hero of the tale has survived, and the more
marvellous his adventures, the more sympathy he excites.[110]

Will it be thought to proceed from a spirit of contradiction, if we
remark, that this species of reading should not early be chosen for
boys of an enterprising temper, unless they are intended for a
sea-faring life, or for the army? The taste for adventure, is
absolutely incompatible with the sober perseverance necessary to
success in any other liberal professions. To girls, this species of
reading cannot be as dangerous as it is to boys; girls must very soon
perceive the impossibility of their rambling about the world in quest
of adventures; and where there appears an obvious impossibility in
gratifying any wish, it is not likely to become, or at least to
continue, a torment to the imagination. Boys, on the contrary, from
the habits of their education, are prone to admire, and to imitate,
every thing like enterprise and heroism. Courage and fortitude, are
the virtues of men, and it is natural that boys should desire, if they
believe that they possess these virtues, to be placed in those great
and extraordinary situations which can display them to advantage. The
taste for adventure, is not repressed in boys by the impossibility of
its indulgence; the world is before them, and they think that fame
promises the highest prize to those who will most boldly venture in
the lottery of fortune. The rational probability of success, few young
people are able, fewer still are willing, to calculate; and the
calculations of prudent friends, have little power over their
understandings, or at least, over their imagination, the part of the
understanding which is most likely to decide their conduct.--From
general maxims, we cannot expect that young people should learn much
prudence; each individual admits the propriety of the rule, yet
believes himself to be a privileged exception. Where any prize is
supposed to be in